Originally Posted by
jkerchinski
Hi All!
First time posting and getting into point/mile redemptions. I have accrued a few and don't want my balances to stay idle much longer, so I am looking to plan a trip of a lifetime! Thinking about possibly the Maldives, Seychelles, or bouncing around Europe, but not set on anything yet. Looking for any recommendations on the best tools to use to book with points, or past experiences. An airline with a great first or business class service, like Qatar or Singapore would be preferred. Apologies in advance for my ignorance, thanks all!
Here is what I have to work with:
Credit Card
CHASE: 355,832
AMEX: 295,062
CAP1: 248,218
Airlines
AA: 575,628
UA: 31,452
Hotel
MB: 122,719
HLT: 116,848
HYATT: 28,251
Welcome to FT.
Unfortunately, I think it's going to be difficult to help too much. You seem to have plenty of points and miles (which certainly helps), but we don't even know where you're located, and you've listed three destinations in three totally different parts of the world. Are you flexible on dates? Length? Do you need one seat? Two? Four? What past experiences are you referring to? There's a whole Trip Reports forum you can read for those.
There are award booking services that help people use their points to book dream trips, which might be preferable if you want to hand the work off to somebody else. You can also use a tool like point.me to search for availability on a particular date and route through all programs to see which one is cheapest, or seats.aero to search through the end of schedule (as a pro user) for a particular route's availability.
One place to start: what's your priority? Is it a particular destination? A particular airline and class of service? Do you have a set of dates you're locked into? Narrowing down the scope of what you're planning would help you plan the trip and help others assist you.